Terry Doherty wears a few hats for the CYBILS Awards. She is the social media coordinator, she is the ‘librarian’ for our Goodreads shelves, and she is also the incoming president of our Board of Directors. Before volunteering more actively with the CYBILS, she was the creator and Executive Director of the Reading Tub, a nonprofit for family literacy.
Some of my most cherished memories happened in the library. I loved exploring the stacks, recognizing books I’d already read and seeking to discover new ones. Maybe it’s because my dad was a high school history teacher that I was drawn to historical fiction and biographies. Truth be told, most of those stories took place in Europe or America. In part because those were the offerings at the time, and likely because I didn’t actively seek anything else.
Despite all that time among “all the books,” it wasn’t until I started the Reading Tub in 2003 that my world exploded, in a good way. Our mission at the Reading Tub was to promote reading with kids and help adult readers find books that would resonate with their young readers. It is thanks to the Reading Tub that I discovered Louise Beverley Naidoo, Mitali Perkins, and Louise Erdrich, authors whose books my younger self would have devoured.
Through these books I traveled to 1950s Kenya and was immersed in the Mau Mau rebellion [Burn My Heart]. I was dropped into an area of modern-day Burma where boys are kidnapped and forced into service for the Burmese Army [Bamboo People]. In The Porcupine Year I followed an Ojibwe family forcibly removed from their home by the US Government. I met characters whose lived experiences were nothing like mine … or each other’s.
Knowing how I reacted to these books as an adult, I can only imagine how influential these stories would have been on my younger self at a time when I, too, was forming my world views. Characters between the ages of 11 to 16, whose life experiences expanded mine illustrated that our individual circumstances don’t make us different: we all have family and friends whom we love and who love us, we all have dreams about what we want our future selves to be, and we are all in search of answers to big questions about life. Books showed me that these commonalities are the ties that bind us, and teach us empathy.These characters are “living” examples of the limitations of prejudice and pitfalls of assumptions. Fictional stories drawn from facts, events, and the realities of human nature can be a useful tool in the hands of a reader. To limit a reader’s opportunity to discover stories such as these is to rob them of tools that make us human.
Discovery helps us understand ourselves and make sense of our world. It satisfies curiosities and answers questions big and small. As adults, we are the gatekeepers for discovery. It is our job to to ensure the next generation has the opportunity to discover for themselves. Be proactive. Vote. When we vote, we protect everyone’s history. We represent those whose voices are not always heard. We show we care.
Reading Tub Reviews
Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
Burn My Heart by Beverley Naidoo
The Porcupine Year by Louise Erdrich